Waterford talisman Beth Carton is not getting carried away even though she and her teammates continue to be the headline story of this year's Centra Camogie League after they secured their first-ever top-tier league final appearance thanks to a 2-10 to 0-14 win over Kilkenny on home soil on Saturday afternoon.
Niamh Rockett hit five points and Carton picked up Player of the Match honours on the back of a performance that saw her score a goal in each half, which was just about enough to overcome a Kilkenny side where 11 of their 14 points came from Aoife Prendergast frees.
Being within an hour of winning a first ever national title at the highest level for Waterford is something the likes of Carton and Rockett have been chasing for more than a decade. Carton was a star of the victorious intermediate campaign 11 years ago but despite all that has occurred in the meantime, the De La Salle sharpshooter is keeping calm.
"I’ve been playing many years and I haven’t got to a league final. It’s a lovely thing to get to, but after that performance we have a lot to work on, we were lucky to get through it," Carton said in Azzurri Walsh Park afterwards.
"It’s been a great league campaign so far, not just from winning games but a lot of younger players are stepping up, training is very competitive and now we just need to knuckle down and keep that momentum going against Tipperary next week."
Tipp could still sneak into the top two but the 2024 champions would need to win on Saturday and for other results to go their way as well, after they drew with Cork at Páirc Uí Rinn.
Clodagh McIntyre’s stoppage time point made it Cork 2-08 Tipperary 1-11 at the long whistle, but even though the Premier have just one win from four games, new manager, James Heffernan is happy with how his side is developing.
"I don’t know if we can qualify for the final which is a pity, but we’re getting what we want from the league," he said.
"We’ve used 30 players so far in the league and they’ve all contributed well. We need to get more minutes into players next week as well. If we get a win, brilliant, but I’m not really worried about the results either.
"[Waterford are] very hard to break down, they work the ball out so well and they’ve got lots of class up front. That’ll be another tough test, it’s a different test to the likes of Galway and Cork, so for us, they’re all big games."
Heffernan also sent out a rallying cry to Tipperary supporters, asking them to match the endeavour of his young playing group.
"When you see it up close, it's incredible the time and effort that these players put into it, and you just want to see them getting rewarded for that time. I’d like to see a bigger Tipp crowd next week. These are great games to watch and they’re putting in everything for their county so hopefully we’ll start to see that support in the next couple of months."
After leading by 2-06 to 0-04 at half time thanks to goals from Emma Murphy and Orlaith Cahalane, Cork’s performance levels dipped after the turnaround, much to the disappointment of Player of the Match, Laura Hayes. The All-Star and former Player of the Year lined out at six as manager Ger Manley continues to ease most of his frontline stars back into action, and she expressed hope that with time, they’ll be a lot more competitive.
"We’re very frustrated after that, we’re lucky to come out with a point," Hayes said. "We probably played quite well in the first half, we were happy enough with that, but we completely fell apart in the second half. We’re happy to get a point on the board but we’d have to be disappointed with the performance.
"There’s a lot of new players that were on the pitch there at the end, there’s a lot of us who aren’t used to playing together just yet. I only came back last week, the Barrs (St Finbarr’s) girls only came back last week, so once we get that match fitness back in us and we get a bit of game strategy in, we’ll be grand."
The Robert Emmets club in Cushendun was the venue for the meeting of Antrim and Galway, where late points from Carrie Dolan and Aoibheann Barry gave Galway a 1-13 to 1-11 win over Antrim.
The result means that Antrim need to beat Kilkenny next Saturday to stay up, while the Cats are still in with a shout of making the final if they beat the Saffrons with Galway failing to beat Cork. If Galway beat the Rebels, Kilkenny will need to win by six points greater than whatever the westerners’ margin of victory is.
In Division 1B, it’s much more straightforward. Limerick beat Wexford by 3-13 to 1-11 and Dublin eased past Offaly 2-16 to 0-09, so next week Limerick will travel to Dublin for what is effectively a league semi-final, except that a draw will be enough for the Shannonsiders.
Clare lie in wait for the winners. Ellen Casey, Maeve Millea and Áine O’Loughlin were their goalscorers in a 3-18 to 1-09 win over Down in Ennis, but after losing last year’s final to Antrim, Millea said that they’re in no mood to settle for just getting into the top two.
"What good is being in a final if you don’t win it?" she maintained, adding that she expected a strong team to be picked for their last round-robin game, at home to relegation-threatened Offaly next Saturday.
"We were in this situation last year against Antrim, and they beat us in both games. We want to keep winning games, but we’re also working hard on developing our game-plan this year. We’ve a big focus on our puckout strategy, and on using the full width of the pitch to create space.
"It suits our players and it was the same general idea last year, we just didn’t execute it as well. We need to keep improving so we’ll be all out to put in a good performance next week, even if the playing minutes are shared around a little bit more."
With Offaly, Wexford and Down all tied on one win each, Wexford’s trip to the Mourne County will determine which county drops down to Division 1B. With scoring difference the first criterion to separate teams, Down (-25) are most in need of a positive result, but Offaly (-17) have a nervous week ahead with Wexford (-8) in the best position of the three.
